Free My Name Is Mina by David Almond Page B

Scullery. Doreen! A glass of water for Mrs. Scullery, please.”
    Doreen brought the water in. They sat. I stood. We waited in silence. I stared at a painting on the wall. It showed a delicious-looking bowl of fruit. I imagined that on bad days (like today, perhaps) THE HEAD TEACHER gazed at this fruit and dreamed of what he could have been insteadof A HEAD TEACHER. A banana, for instance. Or a plum. Or a bunch of grapes. I tried to imagine THE HEAD TEACHER as a bunch of grapes. He might be much happier that way.
    Minutes passed. Mrs. McKee arrived and was brought into the room by Doreen.
    “Thank you for coming, Mrs. McKee,” said THE HEAD TEACHER.
    “That’s all right,” said Mrs. McKee. She looked at her daughter. “But what on earth … ”
    “Madam,” said THE HEAD TEACHER. “We have called you in on a matter of great importance.” He held up the page of writing. “May I ask you to read … this?”
    The lovely Mrs. McKee took it from his hand. She read it through. She breathed out the sounds of the nicest words. She sighed. She smiled. She shook her head. She held the page like it was something rather precious.
    “This,” said THE HEAD TEACHER, “is possibly the most important piece of writing that this young lady will be asked to do all year. It may well be the most important piece of writing that shewill do during her time as a student at this school. And she presents us with this!”
    Mrs. McKee sighed.
    “Oh, Mina,” she said. “What are we going to do with you?”
    “Don’t know, Mum,” I said.
    And she cuddled me, right there in THE HEAD TEACHER’s office while THE HEAD TEACHER and Mrs. Scullery watched. And THE HEAD TEACHER said,
    “Mrs. McKee …”
    But she raised her hand to stop him.
    “You don’t need to say anything more, Head Teacher,” she said.
    “So you understand the gravity of the situation?” said THE HEAD TEACHER.
    “Indeed I do,” said Mrs. McKee. “So I think I’ll take my daughter home now. And I don’t think she’ll be back for some time. Goodbye.”
    And we walked out of the office and along the corridor and past the classroom and out of the main door and across the schoolyard and out through the gates into the world.
    We walked slowly homeward through the sunlight. We stopped in the park on the way home. We ate ice cream and we sighed at its deliciousness. We sat on a bench by a bush with lovely bright red roses growing on it. We watched people dressed in white playing bowls on the beautiful green lawn. The brown bowls clicked and clunked as they struck each other. The people in white chatted and laughed. Somebody somewhere sang a lovely song. Close by, a little boy rolled down a hill, giggled, got up, ran to his mum and kissed her, then ran up the hill again and rolled down again. It was lovely and warm in the sunshine. The sky was heavenly blue. Bees buzzed. Butterflies flitted by. A dog chased a ball. A flight of honking geese flew over us. The tops of the trees were swaying in the gentle breeze.
    “This is very diggibunish,” said Mum.
    “It is,” I said. “And very pringersticks, as well.”
    When we got home, Mum pinned up GLIBBERTYSNARK in the kitchen. We looked at it together. It was indeed one of the most important pieces of writing I had done all year. I was nowa Homeschooled Girl, which made me Very Very Very Very Very Very Pleased. Very.
    Mum put her arm around me, and we smiled, and we were filled with claminosity.
    EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY
    Write a page of UTTER NONSENSE .
    This will produce some very fine
    NEW WORDS .
    It could also lead to some very
    SENSIBLE RESULTS .
     
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    * Thoughts about swearing. Yes, I know that swearing is very bad, and that swearwords are very very bad bad things. But there are times when nothing else will work – otherwise why have swearwords at all? And I know that you are not supposed to say this, but there are times when swearwords just sound very nice and feel nice on your tongue and are simply very nice